Dr. Jaime Z. Galvez Tan has the rare combination of the following expertise: solid grassroots community work in far flung doctorless rural areas; national and international health planning and programming, experience as faculty of colleges of medicine and health sciences; clinical practice combining North American medicine and Asian and Filipino traditional medicine; national health policy development, national health field operations management and private sector health business development. He has worked with NGOs, the academe, international development agencies and with government.
Dr. Galvez Tan is currently Vice Chancellor for Research; concurrent Executive Director of the National Institutes of Health Philippines and Professor of the University of the Philippines (U.P.) College of Medicine; the President of Health Futures Foundation, Inc., which engages in consultancy, training and research for health and development. He served as Regional Adviser in Health and Nutrition for East Asia and the Pacific Region of UNCEF based in Bangkok in 1995-96. He was the Secretary of Philippine Department of Health in January-July 1995 and was Undersecretary and Chief of Staff from 1992-94.
He is a product of Benedictine education finishing his elementary (1962) and high school (1966), both with honors at San Beda College, Manila. He acquired his Bachelor of Science in PreparatoryMedicine at the Universtiy of the Philippines, Diliman in 1970. He finished his Doctor of Medicine, with honors in clinical clerkship, at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine in 1974 and internship at the Philippine General Hospital in 1975 as one of the ten most outstanding interns. He earned his Masters in Public Health, with a Letter of Excellence, at the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium in 1984.
Right after clinic internship, Dr. Galvez Tan initiated the community based health programs in Leyte and Samar together with Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (1975-78). He was also concurrent Assistant Professor of the University of the Philippines Institute of Health Sciences in Tacloban City,
Leyte which pioneered the stepladder curriculum for health sciences education. He joined AKAP, an NGO involved in community based tuberculosis control as National Training Director (1978-80) with work in the Cagayan Valley, Cordilleras, Samar-Leyte, Davao and Cavite. He then moved to Mindanao in the rural communities of Davao, Agusan and Cotabato as Project Director of Health and Development Mindanao (1981-83). From 1985-92, he was National Program Officer of UNICEF Manila in charge of Development Mindanao (1981-83). From 1985-92, he was National Program Officer of UNICEF Manila in charge of urban basic services, nutrition, children in especially difficult circumstances and area based child survival and development.
Dr. Galvez Tan has co-written two books: Our Health, Our Lives (1982), a guide for community health workers and Fruits and Vegetables with Medicinal Properties (1981). Both have been translated into three Filipino languages. He has also authored 40 papers published internationally and nationally on subjects dealing with primary health care, health and development, community medicine, health sciences education, traditional medicine and the environment. His life history has been incorporated in two books: Revolution from the Heart by Niall O’Brien, 1987 and Beyond the Hospital: A Concept of Community Based medical Practice and Community Based Health Program by Grace De La Costa-Ymzon, 1994.
He has been a consultant of the World Health Organization, UNCEF, UNDP, UNFPA, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and USAID, which has brought him to Switzerland, Spain, Australia, China, Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Bolivia, Kenya, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Kazakhstan. He has delivered lectures in Thailand, South Korea, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy and the U.S.A.
He received the following distinctions: One of the Outstanding Bedans of the Century (1901-2001) of San Beda College; 1998 Community Service Award of the UP Alumni Association; Excellence in Leadership Award, University of the Philippines class 1936 Award in 1974 for being a University Councilor in 1971, the 1972 U.P. Student Council Chairman and Student Regent of the U.P. Board of Regents in 1972-73; the Gawad Magtatambal in 1993 given by the Council for Health and Development and the Gawad Rural Missionary of the Philippines 1994. He is married to Ma. Rebecca V. Maraña and has two children. Ginoo Karlo, born 1982 and Riva Maria born 1986.
